This research presents a consumer evaluation of the delivery and aspects of
services provided at three community run mental health centres. The purpose
of this research is to describe the satisfaction levels of consumers with mental
health service delivery in Durban, with a view to using this information to
improve the services in future for quality assurance. The current investigation
takes a look at how a comprehensive community mental health centre is
perceived by its consumers. The subjects totalling one hundred and eleven
clients who were attending psychiatric community health clinics during the
study period. Using client self report questionnaires, the study investigates
clients' perceptions of several aspects of their clinical care in community
mental health service. In addition to assessing the clients' level of overall
satisfaction and degree of acceptability of the services to the clients, the
researcher was also interested in determining the expectation of consumers
and how the clients perceived the effectiveness of health care service delivery.
Additional information provided was the clients' views of the quality and
outcome oftherapy. As further measures of the clinic's effectiveness and
client satisfaction, questions relative to other help seeking actions, future
behaviour in similar situations and recommendations ofthe clinic to others
were asked.
In addition to asking a wide variety of satisfaction-related questions, sociodemographic
detail (i.e. age, gender, race, educational level, employment
status, length of visits to the clinic) were asked. Most participants were
unemployed men. Analysis of findings indicated that most participants were
satisfied with the health service provided. Recommendations were, however, further made for improving quality of care and towards additional studies in
other settings to include appropriate proportions of all racial groups in South
Africa.